Michael Eisner's 'Prom Queen' Heading For TV - In France

Michael Eisner has been fond of telling interviewers that "Prom Queen," his made-for-the-Internet video series, hasn't made much money on the Web. But that doesn't mean "Prom Queen" can't make any money: He's just sold it and its sequel "Prom Queen Summer Heat" into TV syndication in France and Japan for an undisclosed fee.

Eisner's production company Vuguru sold Web and TV distribution rights to the series in both countries, and licensed the format in Japan (interesting side-note: the concept of a "prom" doesn't exist there). The 120 two-minute episodes will be stitched together for TV in the same way "Quarterlife" was packaged for NBC and now Bravo. A source said Vuguru has no plans to repurpose "Prom Queen" for U.S. TV.

The notion of a Web series being sold into syndication is experimental,
and industry sources we consulted didn't know how they would price such a deal.
A made-for-cable movie might fetch $500,000 in France. But our hunch is
this deal was for much less.

In November, Eisner told the NYT that that "Prom Queen," which he said had cost $3,000 for 90 seconds, had "made a couple thousand dollars." Costs ballooned for the sequel, "Summer Heat," which cost $10,000 per two-minute episode.